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MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry leaving Tulane for Wake Forest

MelissaHarrisPerry.jpg

Melissa Harris-Perry, who went from a Tulane University political science professor and award-winning scholar to well-known MSNBC television host, will be joining the Wake Forest University faculty in the fall, according to the school's website.
(ELIOT KAMENITZ / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE)

Harris-Perry will be a chaired professor of the school in Winston-Salem, N.C. She is a 1994 graduate of Wake Forest.

"My love affair with Wake Forest began when I was 16, so having the opportunity to return is thrilling beyond measure," Harris-Perry said on the website. "Wake Forest taught me the joys of learning, the responsibilities of citizenship, and the endurance of friendship. I welcome the challenge of joining this demanding and nurturing academic environment."

Harris-Perry, 40,was born in Seattle but grew up outside Richmond, Va. She graduated from Wake Forest University with a bachelor's degree in English and received a PhD in political science from Duke University.

She was associate professor at the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University before leaving in 2011 to become a professor of political science at Tulane, where she is founding director of the Project on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South. She is author of "Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America."

She began working at MSNBC as a regular fill-in host on "The Rachel Maddow Show" before getting her own weekend show in February 2012.

Harris-Perry has run into her share of controversy, most recently when she hosted a segment on her show asking guests to talk about Mitt Romney's family Christmas photo showing infant Kieran Romney, the adopted African-American grandchild, with his grandparents and their 21 other grandchildren, all of them white.

Mitt Romney says he has accepted an apology from an MSNBC host who joked about a Christmas picture that included the 2012 Republican presidential candidate's adopted, African-American grandson.

One guest, actress Pia Glenn, sang "one of these things just isn't the same."

Harris-Perry later said her intention was to celebrate diversity, but the segment took an unexpected and offensive turn.